My patience has paid off. I thought long and hard about buying the
Canon 5D Mark IV (and before that the 5DsR). I went through a lot of
soul searching on whether those cameras where worth their high prices
(around $3500 each, give or take a few hundred based on deals, rebates,
donated limbs, etc.).

Last year I ended up buying a house, which prevented me from using the
money I had saved to a) put a down payment on a car, of b) buy one of
those cameras. The primary reason I started do "Automotive Enthusiast
Photography" as a side business was to earn the money to get more camera
gear.

I have a LOT more gear now then I did 3 years ago. But I am still using
my consumer grade Canon EOS Rebel T2i. This camera was purchased in
2010. I am a full believer in the fact that it is the person behind the
camera that makes the difference, and not the camera itself. However,
there are some serious limitations I face with the Canon T2i. The
largest is that its low light capabilities SUCK! Setting the camera
above ISO 800 produces very noisy images, and using software to reduce
that is only good when the images are seen at low resolution. They are
worthless for printing.

Canon 6D Mark II

The Canon 6D Mark II is rumored to be announced on June 29th, and be
available in early August for $1,999.

As you read this I may have pulled the trigger for this camera. I vowed
to myself that I would not buy another camera until after I earned the
money from my side business first. As of this writing I am sitting at
about $1,500 profit for 2017. I have no doubt I will make at least
another $500.

The rumors of the Canon 6D Mark II are that it will have the following
spec (that are important to me):

In comparison my T2i is 18 mp, 9 focus points, 3.4 fps and as stated
sucks at ISO above 800 (and it's kind of bad at 800). Granted, I do not
know how good or not the 6D Mark II will be at high ISO, but it has to
be better than the mark one. I know someone with a first generation 6D
and he has shown me very good photos taken at 6400 ISO. The testing I
did with a rented 7D Mark II and a 5DsR at 6400 revealed that is the
target for the type of photography I do.

When shooting indoor events I need 6400 ISO with minimal noise. I fully
expect the 6D Mark II to do very well in this regard. The increase in
megapixels will come in handy in my printing (I regularly print at
24x36). And the improvement in focus (the 6D 1 has 11 focus points) will
benefit me greatly with track day events. I was not expecting the 6D to
reach 6.5 fps. This is getting awfully close to the 5D Mark IV's 7 fps,
but I will not complain.

So the camera will hopefully be announced on June 29th. I am writing
this a few days before that. I am also going out of town the weekend of
July 1-4. So... I will not have time to update this article before I
have to post it early (before July 1 since I will not be around to post
it on July 1). I am not sure, but I may have pre-ordered this camera as
you are reading this. I do not know when pre-orders will be open.

Assuming this camera will be available in early August, I have two
events I would really like the camera for. 1st is my girlfriend's
graduation. She passed her dissertation for her PhD, and will receive
her doctorate on Aug 11. It would be awesome if I could photograph the
ceremony with the 6D Mark II. 2nd is the total eclipse of the sun on
August 21st.

The later is a bit of a double edged sword. Yes, I would like to use the
best camera I can for the eclipse. So get the 6D Mark II in time for the
event. Wait a second. My T2i is a crop sensor camera and has a 1.6 crop
factor. I will be using my 70-200 f/2.8 lens with my 2x teleconverter
for 140-400 mm of zoom. The 1.6 crop factor gives me the equivalent of
224-640 mm. Wow!

On the other hand... the increased megapixels of the 6D Mark II is
pretty close to the same thing. Meaning if I cropped the 6D2's images to
18 mp it will be almost the same size the T2i will produce. This would
be an interesting experiment to see which camera could produce the best
images. I do NOT know if I would want to be switching bodies during the
2-1/2 or so minutes during the actual eclipse. And I really want to
concentrate on getting images leading up to and away from the total
eclipse.

Conclusion

Granted, I don't have the money to buy the camera (the $1,500 is gone on
regular bills and such), so that means putting it on a credit card and
paying for it later in the year, or maybe next year. Not the best plan.
But VERY tempting.

I will likely make this decision when I get back from my holiday trip.